


Five Roses for Rickon

by geekprincess26



Series: Babes of Winterfell [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Miscarriage (Mentioned), Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 19:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9622634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Sansa and Jon carry roses to the crypts every year to remember two children named Rickon.  This year, they have someone else to remember.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 7 of Jon x Sansa Fanfiction’s 15 Days of Valentine’s challenge. A prequel of sorts to my one-shot "Silver Bright the Moon," although each can be read independently of the other.

The snowflakes began to dust the ground just as the sun set and the Lady of Winterfell exited the glass gardens. One hand was tucked neatly inside her blue wool cloak. She held out the other to catch a few of the icy flecks on her glove. A flicker of sweetness sparked amid the bitter memories this day brought her every year. The happiest moments of her childhood had, without fail, involved snow: Robb slashing his wooden sword through the air and pretending to be an ice giant as his sisters ran squealing away; Bran having them all write their names in the snow that had covered a little-used corner of the courtyard; a fierce but beautiful gale that had heralded Rickon’s birth.

 

Both Rickons had been born during snowstorms, Sansa reflected as she pushed back her hood and made her way down to the crypts. Ned and Cat Stark’s Rickon had entered the world during a ferocious early spring squall; Jon Targaryen’s and Sansa Stark’s Rickon had both entered and left it during the same blizzard at the height of winter.

 

Only one Rickon had a statue in the crypts, but since their little son’s death, Jon and Sansa had used his name day to remember both Rickons. Each of them placed a single white rose next to the statue in the morning to remember the irrepressible child whom they had always both loved as a brother until the day Ramsay Bolton’s arrow had taken his life. In the evening, each crept out to the glass gardens to retrieve another for the son they had lost five moons’ turn before he should have been born. For three of the older Rickon’s name days she had done this, and Sansa’s body still shook from recalling the pains that had signaled the gods' ripping the younger Rickon from her womb. Her hand shook too as she removed it from her cloak and set the white rose she had cradled so carefully into the statue’s hand.

 

Another hand entered her field of vision then, a scarred hand bearing another white rose. Sansa turned to watch her husband place their final tribute of the day into the stone Rickon’s hand. After several minutes, he turned to face Sansa, who by now had tears streaming down her cheeks. She had never been ashamed of the tears she shed on Rickon’s name day, but she was even less ashamed when she saw Jon’s eyes glowing wet in the flickering torchlight around them.

 

He reached for her, and she went to him wordlessly as she always did. She felt his lips pressing kisses to the top of her head, and the sweet warmth from before flared in her again, for never had Jon’s own sorrow been so great that he had neglected to embrace her during her own. If there was a god by the name of Sorrow as some of the old songs said, Jon had always fought him alongside her, and she had always fought him alongside Jon. Remembering it made another pang of sweetness bloom in Sansa’s chest, and she gently loosened her husband’s arms from around her so she could reach into her cloak again with her right hand while her left remained on her husband’s shoulder. She held out a blossoming pink rose to him, and his look of grief changed to one of confusion.

 

“Our Rickons are gone,” she whispered, “but another seed grows alive inside me, my love.”

 

Jon’s eyes grew impossibly wide for a moment. He blinked several times before his hand reached out to spread gently over his wife’s belly.

 

“Truly, Sansa?” he whispered, even more softly than had she.

 

Sansa barely had time to nod before her husband’s arms engulfed her and pulled her off the ground. By the time he set her down, his heart was beating as hard as her own and his lips pressing repeated kisses to her forehead. That was when she felt a tear drip off one of his cheeks and land just above her eyebrow. She pulled back and cradled his face with both of her hands. He cleared his throat and reached up to wipe his cheeks and mumble, “Sorry,” but Sansa pressed her fingers to his lips.

 

“You should not be, my love,” she whispered, and cast a glance at the four white roses gathered in Rickon’s stone hand and glimmering in the torchlight. She reached over to nestle the pink rose beside them.

 

“After all,” she murmured when she turned back to Jon, “I do not think either of our Rickons would begrudge it of us.”

 

Even as the tears dried on his cheeks, Jon smiled. “No,” he said and took his wife back into his arms. He rested his forehead gently against hers, and Sansa smiled back at him.

 

“No, they would not,” Jon repeated, and bent to engulf Sansa’s lips with his own.


End file.
